The present disclosure relates to editing digital audio data.
Digital audio data can include audio data in different digital audio tracks. Tracks are typically distinct audio files. Tracks can be generated mechanically (e.g., using a microphone), synthesized (e.g., using a digital synthesizer), or generated as a combination of any number of individual tracks. Tracks can include audio data representing individual instruments (e.g., kick drum, bass guitar, vocals) or combinations of individual instruments (e.g., an entire drum set). A track includes one or more channels (e.g., a stereo track can include two channels, left and right). A channel is a stream of audio samples. For example, a channel can be generated by converting an analog input from a microphone into digital samples using a digital analog converter.
Tracks can be mixed to form one or more group tracks. For example, a number of individual drum tracks can be summed to form a group drum track. A final mixed track summing all individual tracks can be generated. This mixed track is typically referred to as a mixdown or master track. The mixdown is typically stored as a two channel audio file. However, the mixdown track can include any number of channels depending on the particular application.
The audio data for a track can be displayed in various digital representations. For example, an amplitude display shows a representation of audio intensity in the time-domain (e.g., a graphical display with time on the x-axis and amplitude on the y-axis). Similarly, a frequency spectrogram shows a representation of frequencies of the audio data in the time-domain (e.g., a graphical display with time on the x-axis and frequency on the y-axis). Tracks can be played and analyzed alone or in combination with other tracks. Additionally, the audio data of one or more tracks can be edited. For example, the digital audio data can be adjusted by a user to increase amplitude of the audio data for a particular track (e.g., by increasing the overall intensity of the audio data) across time. In another example, the amplitude of audio data can be adjusted over a specified frequency range. This is typically referred to as equalization.
Audio data at a particular frequency can obscure a user's ability to hear other audio data at a similar frequency, particularly when the other audio data has a lower amplitude. For example, a kick drum and a bass guitar can share similar frequency ranges. When both are played back simultaneously, the instrument having lower amplitude can be masked in that frequency range by the other instrument.